


A Bullet In Your Ice Cream

by Myrime



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Don't copy to another site, Family, Gen, Guns, Iron Dad, Iron Family, Precious Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Protective Peter Parker, Tony Stark Lives, Whump, Whumptober, spider son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 08:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20905028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myrime/pseuds/Myrime
Summary: Peter takes Morgan out for ice cream. This was not supposed to end with someone holding her at gun point.





	A Bullet In Your Ice Cream

**Author's Note:**

> For the [Whumptober 2019](https://whumptober2019.tumblr.com/) Day 5: Gun Point

Nothing was supposed to ruin their outing. Mr. Stark’s call had come unexpected, telling Peter that he had work to do in the city and whether he would want to watch Morgan while he took care of boring meetings in the tower. It had been a no-brainer.

Peter loves spending time with Morgan, loves being part of Mr. Stark’s family, just like that. They went out for ice cream, listened to the musicians in Central Park. It was perfect. Which makes it rather surreal that everything shattered so quickly.

Peter stares at the man. He wears ragged clothes, appears unkempt, has a wild look in his eyes. All of Peter’s senses scream danger, and that is without taking the gun into account. The gun that the man is currently pointing at Morgan’s head.

A strange calm comes over Peter. They had been walking when a shadow came up out of an alley, snitching Morgan away from his side. He was not fast enough to hold her back, too surprised by the sudden attack. And now a man who does not seem quite steady on his feet has a deadly weapon pointed at his sister.

“Your money,” the man barks, “or I will blow her pretty head off.”

The man reeks of desperation. Any other time, Peter might have felt some sympathy for him. Now, though, he is frozen, the first tendrils of anger nibbling at his shocked composure.

“Now, see,” Peter says, wondering how he manages to keep his voice so calm. “This isn’t going to end well.”

He imagines Mr. Stark turning up out of nowhere, directing a repulsor blast right at the man’s chest. He imagines himself lunging forward, disarming the man before he even knows what is happening. He even imagines Morgan stomping on the man’s foot and making her escape.

Instead, they are all frozen, facing off.

“Damn right it won’t,” the man snarls. His words are slightly slurred as if he is drunk or coming down from a high, looking for his next fix. “Now hand over your money and your phone.”

Peter does not have much money. Never had, and he would not carry it on him if he did. He knows his city better than that.

It does not even make much sense that the man would choose them. Two children, and only one of them clothed somewhat well. They do not look like they have anything worth stealing, and if the man knew who he was pointing a gun at, he would ask for more than Peter’s pocket money.

“I mean it,” Peter tries again. He is afraid of what will happen when the man finds out just how little money Peter has. “You should really take that gun down.”

“Or what?” the man asks, sneering. He has no idea who he is dealing with. “You’ll stutter at me some more?”

Morgan looks up at him. Her eyes are wide, and there is no more trace of laughter on her face. Their entire afternoon is wiped away by one jerk’s fatal decision.

“Peter,” she calls out and makes it sound like a question. Like she is not sure whether he might abandon her to her fate. Like she is scared out of her mind.

“I know, M,” Peter says in as calm a tone as he can manage. He has to sound like he knows what he is doing, like he is not terrified himself. “Everything’s fine.”

The man jerks, apparently angered by Peter’s composure. “Everything’s going to be not fine if you don’t get a move on, boy.” He grips Morgan’s shoulder even harder, shaking her when she winces.

This is going too far. Peter could take the man out. He is fast. He would just have to raise his hand and shoot a web. Or close the distance between them and take him out manually. Also, the man looks impaired by some kind of substance. The gun is already not very steady in his hand, though. Even the slightest of movements could cause him to pull the trigger. Peter cannot risk Morgan’s life like that. She is his sister and Mr. Stark has trusted him with her life.

If only someone would walk past and notice their dilemma. Then again, it would be better if no one startled the man into a hasty action.

“All right,” Peter says slowly, trying to make himself smaller to appear defeated. “Let me just get my money out. It’s not much, I should warn you.”

The man takes a small step forward before stopping himself. He looks too eager. “Stop talking,” he orders, watching each of Peter’s movements with undisguised suspicion.

Peter reaches inside his pocket deliberately slow and gets out his wallet. It is Uncle Ben’s old one and Peter hates to give it away. It will be a small price to pay if nothing else happens, though. He holds it up in the air so the man can see it.

“I’ll come over to you now,” Peter announces. If he gets a little bit closer, he will have better chances of disarming the man without endangering Morgan further.

“Like hell, you will,” the man yells, newly agitated, causing Peter to curse silently at his miscalculation. Drunks might be open to suggestion, but this one apparently has not lost all reason yet. “Drop it to the ground.”

Peter does not like that at all. Throwing the wallet over would have made sense. He could have even used that as a distraction to finally take the man out. If Peter drops it by his feet, the man is still not any closer to getting his hands on it.

He does not dare to test the man’s patience any further, however, so he crouches down carefully, never taking his eyes off the man and his gun. He puts the wallet down to the ground and adds his phone to the pile, briefly thinking about sending off an emergency signal. The man is watching him too closely for Peter to risk that.

“Now leave,” the man says, eyeing the wallet hungrily.

“What?” Peter asks, certain he has not heard that right. He gets back up, straightens his back in what could easily be seen as a threat. Peter feels his resolve hardening.

“Leave,” the man repeats, sounding impatient.

Peter swallows the urge to laugh. Hysteria will not make things easier on them. “I’m not leaving,” he says, wondering whether anyone would take that option. That is not how this is going to work.

“You will do as I say,” the man barks, swaying dangerously, “or I blow little missy’s brain out right here.”

He looks like he would do it, like he would see nothing wrong with it. He might even argue that it was Peter’s own fault for not following his orders.

Peter swallows down his fear and plants himself on the ground like he is never going to move. “I’m not going to leave my sister with you.”

Peter calling her his sister is apparently enough to pull Morgan back to the present, back from whatever nicer place she has taken refuge in inside her head. She looks up, wide-eyed, her lips trembling.

“Peter,” she says, barely more than a whisper. “I’m scared.”

Pushing the anger down to don a somewhat soothing face takes effort, but Peter does not want Morgan to be afraid of him too. “I know, hon,” he says and wants to add more, anything to reassure her at least a little bit.

“Stop talking,” the man says again, more of a shriek now as if he is rapidly losing the grip on his sanity. He is definitely running out of patience.

“I don’t care about my stuff. I will leave it here,” Peter says, trying to sound calm, confident. “I will not call the police. But you have to let go of my sister.”

There is no way Mr. Stark will let anyone get away with threatening his daughter. Worse, with putting a gun against her head. The man already looks like he is having a rough time, but this was surely the biggest mistake of his life.

“Now, listen here you little shit –”

Peter sees it happening almost in slow motion. Spittle flies from the man’s mouth as he steps an angry step forward, jabbing the barrel of the gun hard enough against Morgan’s temple that she cries out and stumbles, pushing things further out of control.

Peter is moving before she hits the ground, before the gunshot rings through the air. He fires with his web slinger and is not sure whether he hits. He does not even know what he was aiming for. Morgan to pull her out of the way. The gun itself, to perhaps catch the bullet. The man’s hand to redirect the shot.

What he knows, is that his heart drops to the bottom of his abdomen, stopping to beat altogether before it falls into a panicked gallop. He crashes into the man, his foot connecting with flesh and breaking a bone with a sickening crash.

Rage courses through Peter’s veins like molten fire, but he does not give into it. Because more than anything else, he is afraid. He does not watch the man fall, but simply kicks him down and secures him with more webs than are strictly necessary. The gun lies next to him, and Peter pushes it out of the way.

When he turns, Morgan is on the ground. She is moving, heaving little sobs. Her face is hidden by her hair, and Peter does not see any blood but that does not have to mean anything.

Trembling, he lowers himself down next to her. He reaches out to touch her shoulder but is not surprised when she flinches. She shifts a little to the side, revealing a crack in the pavement. The bullet is nowhere to be seen and there is no way to discern whether the crack is new, but there is still no blood, so Peter dares to hope.

“Morgan, it’s over,” he says, his voice as soft as he can make with how unravelled he feels inside. “It’s over. He won’t do anything to you anymore. Can you look at me?”

It takes some more coaxing, an endless repetition of empty phrases of how everything will be all right now. Peter is patient. He remembers being young in a very scary world. He remembers how gunshots ring in the ears and how fear sticks to the skin, seemingly impossible to get rid of again.

“Is he gone?” Morgan asks, sounding younger than she ever has before.

“He is still here,” Peter says because lying about this would only backfire as soon as she looks up. “But he cannot do anything. Remember how we stuck your dad’s tools to the table with my webs? He couldn’t get them off, not even with the gauntlet.” Distracting her will surely not work, but Peter has to try. “I’ve webbed the man up. I promise he can’t move.”

Peter almost wants him to try. He is itching for a fight. A real one, But Morgan is his first priority.

“I want to go home,” Morgan says, still not moving away from the ground.

Picking her up would be easy, but he does not want to startle her. He needs to coax her out of her shock, needs to look her over for wounds. It is impossible to imagine what he will do is she has been shot.

“I know, M. I’ll get you there right away,” he promises, yearning for the tower himself. For the lake house. For Mr. Stark. “Can you look at me first?”

Slowly, Morgan uncurls and raises her head to look at Peter. There are tears running down her face and she is still trembling. She does not look like she is in pain, but she is definitely in shock and that can mask a lot.

Before Peter can say anything more, Morgan launches herself at him, burying herself against his chest. The trembling becomes more obvious now, wandering over inside Peter’s own skin. He has to remain strong, though, needs to get them to safety first before he can break down too.

“Are you hurt?” Peter asks, barely knowing how to find that out while there is a panicked chorus inside his head, yelling _she could be shot. Do something before she bleeds out and dies in your arms._

Morgan shakes her head, but she is pale and cold and pressed against Peter so that he cannot see her. He does not have the heart to push her away either.

“This is important, M,” Peter intones. “Did you feel anything hit you?”

He is running his hands down her sides, does not find any place that makes her cry out. Still no blood. No torn clothes. No obvious wounds. Peter allows himself to breathe in relief. She was not hit. They are not all right, and Mr. Stark is going to skin him alive, but he did not get his sister killed while they went out for ice cream.

“I was so scared,” Morgan whispers against his shirt. But she is still standing, still talking. Peter is honestly not sure whether he would have been able to react this way at her age.

“But you were brave, M,” Peter says and means it. “So very brave. I’m proud of you.”

Morgan tips her head back to look at him. Her eyes are red-rimmed and there is a small red spot at her temple where the barrel of the gun hit her. “Are you really?”

“Very much,” Peter says, somehow managing to put a smile on his face. “Now, let’s get you home. Do you want me to carry you?”

Morgan nods but does not say anything, clinging to him as if he is going to keep her safe from everything scary in the world.

As he steps away, Peter checks again whether the man is secured. For good measure, he webs the gun to the ground too. He should call the police to report the incident, but his focus lies with Morgan for now. He needs to get her home to her parents, needs a minute to calm down himself.

Mr. Stark will take care of the man, will take care of them. Home, Peter thinks, and realizes that Morgan is not the only one who needs that.

Despite being shaken to the core, Peter takes measured steps. This was not like facing off against bank robbers or other bad guys while he is in the suit. This was an unprompted attack on his family while he was out with Mr. Stark’s daughter. With his little sister. Things like that are not supposed to happen when he does not have the mask on. More importantly, they are not supposed to happen to Morgan.

Clinging to Morgan, he walks and walks until they get to the tower. It would have been faster to take a cab, but Peter will not trust either of their lives in a stranger’s hands right now. In no hands, really, but Mr. Stark’s.

“I want my Dad,” Morgan says when they step into the foyer of the tower.

“Me too,” Peter admits without shame. “We’ll be there in just a minute.”

The elevator opens for them unprompted, and as soon as they are inside, FRIDAY says, “Boss has been alerted. He is waiting for you.”

At that, Peter allows himself to relax. Mr. Stark will make things right. They are home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
